Sunday, November 15, 2009

George Peed

George Peed was the 70s and 80s king of off - model. Check out Bugs' little hands.He drew tons of cartoon record album covers and they outraged me when I first saw them, but I quickly grew to love them.The funny part is, these look accurate compared to the way they've been drawn in the last decade or so.I love those donkey ears on Porky and Elmer's tiny wide set eyes.Did you know that George is Bill Peet's brother? Bill changed his name slightly, but George stuck to his heritage.

I wish I could find some of the covers George did with Popeye on them. If you have one, send me a link! They're hilarious.

BTW, I drew a George Peed face on the sun in a ren and Stimpy cartoon.Thanks to Tony W. for finding it for me.

Nice white carrot Bugs is chewing on, and EXCELLENT relative size of Tweety to Bugs and to Wile E. Coyote. Tweety must have been gobbling some of Tex Avery's Jumbo-Gro. Great hydrocephalic head on Tweety too.

I remember staring at these album covers for hours as a kid. I always assumed that Peter Pan Records (out of Newark, NJ) never gave their artists any model sheets to go by and that's why their covers were always close, but somewhat off.

There's a children's chapter book I own called Henry & The Paper Route that was written in 1954, and it has a few illustrations. There's one episode where Henry goes to see a marathon of cartoons at the movie theatre, and the illustration of Bugs Bunny onscreen looks like a George Peed drawing. I've always wondered who drew that! Thanks, John!

I must admit, I'm not as keen on these off-model depictions of Bugs and friends by George Peed. They actually bring to mind a similar style by a guy named Bert Grassik, who used to do all of the character art for Disney's Canadian division for many years, through the 60s and 70s, up until he retired in the early 80s. Prior to working for Disney, Bert was an editorial cartoonist, and a very good one, but he never did have a good handle on drawing Mickey and friends. Just like these drawings of the Looney Tunes, Bert also had a tendency to draw tiny, more human-like gloved hands on Mickey, and too much space between the eyes. John, you may recall from your Canadian childhood those ubiquitous magazine ads promoting those cutout wooden wall plaques of various Disney characters. I'm pretty sure those were Bert's designs.

Interestingly, although I usually don't like off-model animation art, I was always a big fan of Al Hubbard, who drew and inked many of the comic book adaptations of the Disney feature films. He had that beautiful thick and thin brush line similar to Walt Kelly's, that gave the comic art such a solidity of form and feeling of life. I think you've used some of his work as samples in previous posts, but you should do a whole topic on him - he was great!

Wikipedia may state Bill Peed changed his name because he was made fun of as a child but so was his brother George, who didn't change his. Bill more likely changed it after hearing 1001 bad puns and seeing just as many insulting in-house caricatures at his expense at Disney in the 1930's and later. His name is still Bill Peed on the main title credits of "The Three Caballeros", released in 1944, and Bill was certainly a fully grown man at that point. At least his first name wasn't Dick.

I'm glad George never changed his name like his cowardly brother. That name provided my brother and i with hours of giggly snickery entertainment as kids. we had Monster Mash (which was a derned good illustration btw.)

George Peed and his covers was something I came to know too well as a 5 year old when that was all my mo ever bought me to stick on a Fisher-Price phonograph. That look is so it's own and somehow I suppose I grew to miss it these days. It does have that feel that reminds me of the work I would find locally in town if someone tried to draw one of those characters without much prior experience in doing so or having anything to go on besides a picture or two from a book.

Very interesting. I also have a Peter Pan read-along book-and-audio set of "Little Red Riding Hood" illustrated by George Peed. I do like the particularly dapper-looking wolf he designed:[img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61GsZjOL0IL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg"]